Here lies Sister Marguerite Bourgeoys, Teacher,
Founder and First Superior of the Congregation of
Notre-Dame, established in the Island of Montreal
for the instruction of girls in town or country,
Deceased on the 12th of January, 1700.
Pray for the repose of her soul!
Thirty days after the death of Marguerite Bourgeoys a solemn requiem was chanted in the Congregation Church and an eloquent panegyric was delivered by M. de Belmont. After mass the preacher carried the heart of the deceased founder, embalmed in a leaden box, to a shrine prepared in a niche, and solemnly blessed the resting place and then closed the opening with a leaden slab, over which lay a copper tablet, bearing the following lines in French:
"Beneath this stone is hid a heart
To flesh a foe, from earth apart,
Its treasure sole, the virgin band
Its zeal had gathered in this land." [161]
Then her daughters hung her portrait over the shrine. For sixty-eight years the sacred relics remained there until a fire broke out in the church and convent of the congregation on April 11, 1768, when the ashes were recovered and placed in a silver box that is still preserved. The memory of the saintly life of Mother Bourgeoys remained long in the land. On December 7, 1878, in the opening years of the pontificate of Leo XIII, a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, at Rome, pronounced Marguerite Bourgeoys, Venerable. The title of "Blessed" was pronounced by Pius X. Her daughters look forward to the day when she may be invoked by them as St. Margaret of Canada.
Thus passed away one of the earliest figures of the infant colony of Montreal. We may aptly quote Parkman's tribute to this saintly woman: "To this day in crowded schoolrooms of Montreal and Quebec, [162] fit monuments of her unobtrusive virtue, her successors instruct the children of the poor, and embalm the pleasant memories of Margaret Bourgeois. In the martial figure of Maisonneuve and the fair form of this gentle nun, we find the true heroes of Montreal." (Jesuits, p. 202.)
FOOTNOTES:
[159] Charlevoix I, 288. Charlevoix lived for some time at the Caughnawaga settlement, about 1721, and there prepared his manuscript for his history. At the presbytery of the church is shown his old hard wood writing desk, still containing the historian's books in their sixteenth and seventeenth century bindings.